The baroness struck in both directions at once. The crude scabbard slammed one guard across the bridge of his nose, cracking wood and cartilage alike, while Sunder cleaved through a second mercenary's crossbow, rendering it so much junk. Dropping the shattered wood, she drove her knee into the groin of the man whose weapon she'd just obliterated. He doubled over in an awkward bow and Irrial thrust Sunder over his head, stabbing into the shoulder of yet a third guard. She prayed it would be enough to keep him out of the fight…
The last of the four drew his own blade and thrust brutally at her chest. Irrial leapt aside, sweeping Sunder in a desperate parry, awkward but impossibly swift. She heard the creak of leather and mail as the pair behind her rose from Corvis's side, but could not spare a moment to glance their way. She could only keep moving and hope that they'd recognize the distinct possibility of skewering their fellow guards before pulling the triggers on those crossbows.
Apparently they did, for no bolts flew. Instead she sensed a presence looming behind, twisted, then stabbed Sunder down into the thigh of the approaching man. He screamed, clutching at the gaping wound.
But the second soldier hurled himself bodily at Irrial's legs, knocking them out from under her. She fell hard, and only the thick carpeting saved her from a cracked skull. A broad-shouldered man, nose battered and bleeding, knelt painfully on Irrial's left arm, while the fellow she'd kneed stomped brutally on her other wrist. Despite herself she cried out, and felt Sunder slide from her spasming fingers.
"Cerris!" she cried out, trying desperately to peer past the shapes gathered around and atop her. No help there, she noted gravely; he lay on the carpet where he'd fallen. The guard who'd nearly gutted her now stood over him, sword held to his throat. Footsteps sounded in the hall, and another dozen guards appeared from around the corners and through various doors, drawn by the commotion.
Well, Irrial thought bitterly, that could have gone better. They were in worse trouble now than they'd been, without the slightest indication that Corvis's plan had even-
More footsteps, again from both sides. Guards and prisoners alike strained their necks first this way then that, desperate to see.
What they saw were Guildmasters and barons, knights and earls-perhaps eight or nine in total. Some wielded swords, some daggers, some chair legs or other makeshift clubs, but all wore that subtle, preoccupied look Irrial had seen upon so many faces earlier that day. And in the lead, bludgeon held high, was Mubarris, master of the Cartwrights' and Carpenters' Guild.
They were a rockslide of living, panting, foolish-looking flesh, ready to dash themselves to bloody bits against the bulwark of the assembled mercenaries. Stronger, more numerous, better equipped, and far better trained, the soldiers could have slaughtered the lot without breaking a sweat.
But these were their employers, men and women they'd been hired to protect. Confusion stayed the warriors' hands for a precious instant before self-preservation usurped control, and in that time the blades and bludgeons landed. Blood seeped into the formerly expensive carpeting, and the first soldier fell without having raised a finger.
The shock of the unprovoked assault faded, and the remaining mercenaries responded as mercenaries do. Crossbows thrummed, blades swung, and bodies toppled.
Irrial felt the pressure on her arms ease up as the guards holding her rose to deal with this new threat. She surged to her feet, reaching for Sunder.
Corvis, who had rolled from beneath his captor in his own moment of distraction, got there first.
The blade shifted like living clay from dueling sword to brutal axe, and the aging warlord began to kill. Irrial flinched from the butchery, the deaths of men and women who had committed no evil, but were simply doing the job for which they'd been hired. But when Corvis stopped for an instant at her side, extending, hilt-first, the sword he'd yanked from a mercenary's hand even as he'd ripped Sunder from the fellow's chest, she sighed and accepted the blade. And when Corvis waded into the thick of the melee, chopping down soldiers like saplings, she was at his back, stabbing and lunging. She would survive, she would escape, no matter what it took.
For Rahariem's sake, perhaps for all Imphallion's.
She had no choice. THEY RACED ALONG THE HIGHWAY, kicking up a cloud of dust as thick as a desert sandstorm. For more than an hour they'd galloped, Corvis desperately casting a handful of spells to keep the horses fresh.
Alas, he had no similar spells to protect his aching rump from the punishment of their grueling pace.
They left behind a capitol in chaos. Over two dozen guards, and perhaps four or five aristocrats and Guildmasters, lay butchered throughout the Hall of Meeting. Nobody seemed sure precisely how it had happened, for Corvis's surviving "minions" had once more been mystically coerced never to speak of what had occurred, and none of the soldiers who'd been present had survived. The former warlord had every reason to hope it would be some time before anyone in authority even knew for certain that they had escaped-and even longer until they could mount any sort of pursuit.
None of which was even remotely enough to convince him to slow down, no matter that his entire body throbbed like one big saddle sore.
Eventually, however, they reached the limits of Corvis's modest magics. The horses began to tire, their sides lathered, and though he'd have liked to cover a few additional miles, Corvis reluctantly reined in his mount and guided the laboring beast off the road. For only a few moments more they continued, until they found themselves on the cracked banks of what, during cooler months, would have been a stream. A few puddles of muddy water remained, and the horses gratefully submerged their noses as though planning to dive in and float away.
Irrial wilted from the saddle with an extended groan.
"You're starting to remind me of bagpipes," Corvis joked weakly as he, too, flopped to the dirt. He knew she must be exhausted when she couldn't even muster a glare.
"I'm sorry," he wheezed at her, taking a huge gulp from his waterskin. "But it's not just foot pursuit I'm worried about. I don't know what sorts of sorcerers the Guilds might have access to these days. Our best defense really is distance at this point. And-"
"I didn't ask," she told him flatly. And that, throughout the sweltering summer night and into the next morning, was the end of the conversation. "SO WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT more often?" she asked while they saddled the horses, after a cold breakfast of salted venison and dried fruits.
"Do…?"
"That spell." She hauled herself into the saddle, wincing at the pains in her back and thighs that hadn't faded overnight. "The one you cast on the horses. Don't misunderstand, I've no interest in enduring that on a regular basis, but it would save us a lot of time."
"Dangerous," he told her, standing beside his own roan, one hand resting idly in the stirrup. "It's far too easy to kill the horses-either by pushing them too hard, or just from the strain of the spell itself. If we hadn't been so damn desperate yesterday, I'd never have risked it." Still he stood, idly tapping a finger on the leather, and made no move to mount.
"Problem?" she asked.
"Maybe…" He frowned.
"Don't tell me: You have no idea what to do next?"
"Oh, I have some thoughts. It's just…" He sighed, and his expression became even more dour. Much as he'd have liked to hide it, any observer-let alone one who knew him as well as Irrial-would probably have suspected that he was frightened of something.
"I didn't really expect we'd find all our answers in Mecepheum," he admitted, "but I'd hoped. If we're to go chasing leads all over Daltheos's creation, there's someone I have to see first."
"Someone you think has answers?"
"Someone I think has questions."